We managed to get our hands on a 17-inch Asus G74S notebok powered by a beefy Intel quad quad-core and Nvidia's latest GTX 560M mobile GPU with 3GB of memory. We are still working on our preview and it is too early to give you any conclusion on the Asus G74S, but we can tell you that the new GPU packs quite a punch. The G74S sports an Intel's Core i7 2630 quad core, the latest achievent in second generation Core architecture and it is a good match for the mainstream 560.

Apart from a pretty nice spec sheet, the big Asus is rather pleasant to look at as well. It features an understated design, solid build quality and relatively good materials. It doesn’t look as cumbersome as some 17-inchers and the stylish chiclet keyboard and large trackpad are a nice touch.

As you can see Asus kept things simple and the minimalistic approach worked quite well.

As for the hardware, here are the usual CPU-Z and GPU-Z screens.

GPU-Z tells us that the card has 192 shaders clocked at 1550MHz and that the GPU runs at 775MHz. It packs 3GB of memory clocked at 625MHz and this can give you a hint that the card is significantly faster than the Geforce GT 555 M that we tested inside Alienware M14X.

We just had a chance to run 3Dmark 2011 as this is one of the few DirectX 11 tests around, but don't worry, we will get you some game scores too. In the entry test you can clearly see that GTX 560M is significantly faster than the Geforce GT 555, roughtly some fourtly percent. Needless to say, the speedy quad-core processor also has a lot to do with the good scores. The trend continues in performacne and extreme settings, so you can tell that this is a fast GPU.

More scores and a bit more details as soon as we get them done. So far, so good, the Asus gets a passing mark, but tune in for the full review in a couple of days.